FINN D’IT
Finding the lost
bagpipe of Finland
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Finn d’it
Finnd’it was launched in Helsinki in 2019 as a research and networking initiative centred on a simple question: what happened to the Finnish Säkkipilli?
The initiative set out to gather evidence of bagpipes in Finland, connect researchers and musicians, document surviving material, and explore how the Säkkipilli might once again become a working musical instrument.
What began as a Finnish search gradually opened onto a much larger regional field.
FIND IT
BUILD IT
PLAY IT
FIND IT
The first task was to locate the evidence.
Historical objects, museum collections, iconography, written sources, photographs, repertoire and knowledge held by musicians and local communities all formed pieces of an incomplete picture.
From the outset, Finnd’it recognised that Finland could not be understood in isolation. Bagpipes, musicians and musical ideas have always crossed the borders that later divided the Baltic Sea region.
BUILD IT
The second task was practical.
Historical evidence was documented, measured and compared in order to explore what a Finnish bagpipe might become as a playable contemporary instrument.
This process eventually developed into Gonçalo Cruz’s doctoral research at the Sibelius Academy and the design of the Neo-Säkkipilli.
PLAY IT
The aim was never simply to recover an object.
For the Säkkipilli to have a future, it needed to return to musical practice: to be made, played, taught, discussed and developed by musicians.
That work now continues beyond Finnd’it through Sakkipilli.fi, the Neo-Säkkipilli project and the growing community of bagpipe players in Finland.
THE SEARCH EXPANDED
Finnd’it began with Finland, but the evidence repeatedly pointed outward.
Contacts with musicians, makers, researchers and museums in neighbouring countries revealed a wider field of related instruments, historical sources and technical knowledge.
This regional perspective eventually became central to the doctoral Museum Instrument Survey and helped establish the foundations of the Baltic Sea Bagpipes Research Archive.
The principle already expressed by Finnd’it was simple: neighbouring traditions matter because instruments and musical practices do not necessarily follow modern national borders.
A NETWORK FORMED
Finnd’it also created the Bagpipe Network Meetings: free and open gatherings intended to connect musicians, makers, educators and researchers working with bagpipes in Finland and neighbouring regions.
The meetings were conceived as places to encounter instruments and techniques directly, compare repertoire and research, build relationships across languages and institutions, and develop future international collaborations.
2019 — Helsinki
The first Bagpipe Network Meeting focused on the Latvian Dūdas and brought Finnish and regional musicians and researchers together.
2022 — Helsinki / Online
The second meeting, Forgotten Woodwinds in Museums, expanded the conversation towards museum collections, historical instruments and research. The original Finnd’it site records it as the second edition, held at Musiikkitalo on 4 March 2022.
The next chapter of the Network Meetings will continue through Baltic Sea Bagpipes.
All Current Campaigns
FROM FINND’IT
TO TWO NEW PROJECTS
Finnd’it served its purpose.
The original search has now developed in two complementary directions.
Säkkipilli
Continues the Finnish story: the historical evidence, the research process, the development of the Neo-Säkkipilli, and the instrument’s emerging musical life in Finland.
Baltic Sea Bagpipes
Carries forward the wider regional work: the research archive, international network, Bagpipe Network Meetings and future collaboration between museums, universities, researchers, musicians, makers and communities.
FINND’IT · 2019 – 2026
Finnd’it remains online as part of the history of the project and of the research that followed.
Its original objectives — find it, build it, play it — helped initiate a process that ultimately extended from the search for a lost Finnish instrument to a new Säkkipilli and a wider Baltic Sea research network.
Initiated by Gonçalo Cruz in Helsinki, Finland.
GoncaloCruz.com
Sakkipilli.fi
BalticSeaBagpipes.org
WITH THANKS
With thanks to the institutions and funding bodies that supported Finnd’it.
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